Monroe High School is starting a new texting program this month to alert students, parents, and teachers about weather updates and important events.

Robert Vergiels, a promotions director  of Monroe Public Schools, is one of the makers of the text messaging program.

“Dennis O’Conner, the president of DOCOM, took a survey on what parents and students wanted and the result was that they overwhelmingly wanted text message updates. We gave them what they want,” Vergiels said.

Vergiels said the texts could be very beneficial to everyone. “We will be sending out texts about school delays, cancellations, etc. We are also training the principles on how to send a text message to only certain students and parents that might pertain to a specific situation,” Vergiels said.

Vergiels was also the voice of the Honeywell system, which was the old system MHS used to get out updates to students and parents. This new program is in addition to the phone calls and emails that the school has already been sending out.

“It’s very important that people realize that the text messages are in addition to what we have already been doing,” Vergiels said.

Lucas Burns, a student at MHS, would rather have a phone call than a text message.

“I would rather have a phone call because my ringer would go off and wake me up, and I don’t think I would see or hear the text message,” Burns said.

Senior Jenna Gallotia said she believes differently.

“I would rather have a text message because I text more. I also think that high school students text more,” Gallotia said.